· Governments should criminalize and publicly condemn violence, especially sexual abuse by prison or jail officials, against women in custody. They should investigate thoroughly and without undue delay accusations of such abuse and fully punish those found guilty.
· Consistent with the U.N. Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment, governmentsshould ensure that prison and jail staff treat all prisoners humanely and with respect for their inherent dignity.
· Consistent with the U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, governments should ensure that prison and jail staff apply prison rules impartially, without discrimination based on sex, among other grounds.
· Governments should enact and strictly enforce statutes that make it a criminal offense for prison officials to engage in any kind of sexual contact with prisoners. Even where force, coercion, threat of punishment or offer of reward cannot be demonstrated, female prisoners should not be punished for such contact. The inherently coercive nature of the prison environment and the unequal relationship between prison employees and prisoners is a factor in any such contact, while the penalogical interest served by such punishment is far outweighed by the deterrent effect it is likely to have on prisoners' willingness to report custodial abuse.
· Governments should establish independent investigative units with the authority to receive complaints and initiate investigations of alleged physical, including sexual, abuse of women prisoners by prison and jail staff or police.
· Governments should ensure that a prison's internal procedural rules and regulations, as well as state and federal laws, governing the treatment of prisoners are consistent with international standards. They should expressly define and prohibit sexual misconduct, including rape, fondling, inappropriate touching, the use of sexualized, demeaning language or gestures, and inappropriate observation of prisoners' bodies. The condition of incarceration should be seen as a factor aggravating the seriousness of custodial sexual misconduct, particularly rape, rather than as a mitigating factor as often occurs.
· Governments should eliminate discriminatory laws and practices that contribute to the wrongful incarceration of women. This should include a review of rules of evidence in order to eliminate norms that discriminate on the basis of sex.
· Governments should ensure that women enjoy full equality before the law. To that end, they should eliminate gender bias in the administration of justice. Judges should be appropriately trained in non-discriminatory application of the law.
· Governments should vigorously enforce laws and rules governing the treatment of women in police custody or prison. Specifically, laws and regulations should punish prison and jail staff who humiliate or degrade women prisoners and require respect for the privacy ofwomen in custody. To this end, governments should, among other things: ensure that women prisoners are not subjected to strip searches unnecessarily or for the purposes of humiliation or punishment; restrict the role of male guards or police in such searches, except in cases of emergency; protect women prisoners from inappropriate observation by male personnel while being searched and while in the showers, bathrooms, and other personal areas where the dignity of a prisoner requires privacy in all but extraordinary circumstances.
· Governments should ensure that women prisoners are effectively informed upon entering a custodial situation, about jail or prison policies, their rights as prisoners under international law, and the means available to exercise those rights. Consistent with the U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, women prisoners who cannot read should be given this information verbally.
· Governments should prevent and enforce sanctions for any form of punishment or retaliation against women prisoners for filing complaints of custodial abuse against prison or jail officials.
· Governments should ensure that prisons and jails implement procedures to facilitate the safe reporting of abuse by women prisoners. The identity of women inmates filing complaints against guards or other prison or jail personnel should remain confidential, so as to prevent retaliation and to facilitate safe reporting, until revelation of the identity of the accused is absolutely necessary to the investigation of the charges.
· Governments should ensure that all state-imposed deterrents to the reporting of sexual and other forms of physical abuse by prison or jail staff or police are eliminated, such as requirements that women prisoners confront their alleged assailants prior to filing a formal complaint. Nor should women face punitive sanctions if the allegations are not proven.
· Governments should ensure that guards and other prison or jail personnel accused of sexual or other misconduct are removed immediately from having any contact with the accusing prisoner, until the accusation has been fully investigated and a judgment has been issued and executed.
· Governments should ensure that prison services maintain up-to-date data on sexual misconduct charges for all prisons under their direction. To ensure accountability, they should further createindependent review mechanisms to monitor the handling and outcome of cases of alleged sexual abuse.
· Governments should ensure that guards, police, and other prison or jail personnel are expressly forbidden to take part in any capacity whatsoever in investigations in which they stand accused of misconduct.
· Governments should ensure that jail and prison personnel are effectively trained to know that physical abuse of and sexual misconduct with prisoners by prison and jail staff is strictly prohibited and will not be tolerated. Such training should specify that all such abuse and misconduct will be punished administratively and, where appropriate, criminally.
· Government compliance reports to CEDAW should include information on steps taken to eradicate violence and discrimination against women in custody, including measures taken to sanction prison or jail personnel found guilty of such abusive behavior.
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